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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

first, congratulations and thanks for this preaching service on the web: it really appears to me as a beacon in the stormy and dangerous internet sea.

I ask you my question: as narrated in Genesis, the Garden of Eden is the state that God wanted for the created man, isn’t it? Even so, the fall into original sin introduced the present human condition into human history, and the need for Redemption in order to partake in the presence of God. Does it mean that at the end of all times we will return to our progenitors’ condition? and what was the tempting serpent doing in the Garden of Eden? and why was it able to tempt our progenitors who, unlike us, were not experiencing the misery of the human condition? Even after our resurrection, will we perhaps have to deal with temptations?

Thank you.

Massimo.

The answer of the Priest

Dear Massimo,

1. if our progenitors had not disobeyed God, the earthly Paradise would represent the provisional state of life waiting to go to the heavenly Paradise.

Our progenitors, although endowed with a very great knowledge of God and even with a certain friendship with Him, still lived in faith and not in the perfect fruition of God.

2. At the end of all times, after the resurrection of the bodies, we will not return to the condition of the earthly Paradise, but we will enter directly into God, and so into an infinitely superior condition.

Our body will be glorious, like the body that Jesus manifested on the day of the Transfiguration. It will no longer be subdued to needs which were still subduing it in the earthly Paradise, such as eating and sleeping for example, …

3. You ask me what the tempting serpent was doing in the earthly Paradise.

We should not forget that the progenitors’ story describes their creation and fall in anthropomorphic language, convenient for the understanding of quite primitive people.

Keeping this criterion in mind, you can correctly understand what the Jerusalem Bible says about the serpent:

[tr.] “Here, is the serpent used to disguise a being hostile to God and enemy of man? It is known that the wisdom tradition, then the New Testament and the entire Christian tradition recognized it as the opponent (or tempter), the devil (rf. Job 1:6).

In favor of that identification, we note that the serpent acts precisely in opposition to the divine prohibition, as if God had wanted to hide from man and woman what would have happened after eating the forbidden fruit; however, that is in tension with its description as a simple but cunning animal, and sentenced to crawl on its belly and eat dirt (Gn 3,14).

Perhaps, the intervention of a cunning animal as a tempter just suggests that the man and woman must blame only themselves for the transgression.

The author presented in the form of a dialogue between the serpent and the woman what comes up after a human proceeding: the attraction for the forbidden fruit leads to transgression; Gn 3,6 precisely describes this human proceeding” (note to Gn 3,1).

4. Satan was able to tempt our progenitors because it is an existing being. He also tempted Our Lord Who, although having a mortal human nature, yet He was not inclined toward evil, whereas we are.

And so, we see that the devil tempts not only the miserable, but also the saint.

5. In the celestial Paradise there will be no way for Satan’s presence and nobody will undergo its temptations.

At the end of the world, Satan will be definitively defeated and overthrown. It will be able to torment no more, and nobody. We read in the Book of Revelation: “The Devil who had led them astray was thrown into the pool of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev 20,10).

The definitive victory over Satan will open the path to found the Kingdom of God on a new earth. The first steps will be the universal resurrection and the final judgment (rf. Rev 20,11:15).

I assure you of my prayers so that, with God’s help, you may always be victorious over time and above all for eternity over our common opponent.

I bless you.

Father Angelo